STEAM and STEM
The acronym STEM has become popular in education and industry, with the letters representing:
S - SCIENCE
T - TECHNOLOGY
E - ENGINEERING
M - MATHEMATICS
In reality, STEM has become representative of these careers, and education pathways to these careers. The term emerged in the late 1990’s when it was recognised that a focus on STEM careers was necessary to address the shortage of people with STEM skills in industrialised countries, coupled with an increasing need for these skills in the future of work.
STEM education has typically focussed on embedding concepts into learning to make it accessible, exciting and more real-world focussed rather than being solely focussed on a single subject. As such, a focus on competencies has become synonymous with STEM education - broadly known as the “4C’s” including critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.
STEM has subsequently evolved to STEAM to include the A - ARTS. While the intentions of both terms are identical, a formal recognition of the creativity element is felt to capture subjects such as design, art and languages that have also been struggling for relevance in the modern world.
STEM careers are generally high-skilled, have complex pathways (usually through in university study) and have ongoing issues with equity and diversity due to the barriers to participation of traditional pathways. Commentary on this issue in NZ can be found here and here. Many initiatives are focussed on addressing these imbalances, as well as the overall shortage of talent.
Key Takeaways:
STEM means the same as STEAM and the terms are used interchangeably.
STEAM is more about the competencies, rather than subjects that form the acronym.
There are many ongoing issues relating to access, equity and diversity in STEAM, which is a key focus of many initiatives.
The NZ context of STEM AND STEAM is covered here:
http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Future-focused-learning/STEM-STEAM#js-tabcontainer-1-tab-5
A great blog exploring this from our one our STEAM4GOOD Partners can be found here:
https://creativemaths.net/blog/stem-and-statistics/